Toby Harnden was the Daily Telegraph's US Editor, based in Washington DC, from 2006 to 2011. Click here for Toby's website. Follow him on Twitter here @tobyharnden and on Facebook here. He is the author of the bestselling book Dead Men Risen: The Welsh Guards and the Defining Story Britain's War in Afghanistan.

Has Barack Obama blown it with Bill and Hillary Clinton?

Full coverage of the US Elections 2008Here in Denver, it's easy to blame the Clintons. Out on the convention floor, their diehards are there with their Hillary buttons, plotting to run in 2012, whining on about the 18 million cracks in that glass ceiling, secretly wishing John McCain will win in November. Truth is, the Obama people feel, they lost – get over it!

Will Barack Obama step in and help Hillary Clinton?

And Bill's all upset about being accused of being racist? Well, if the cap fits! And what about Hillary talking about hard-working white people? A favourite badge here for Obama loyalists is "Hard working white person for Hillary." The Clintons feel dissed? But they have half the convention! Hillary speaks tonight and Bill speaks tomorrow. She's getting a roll call vote. In her speech, Michelle Obama even talked about those 18 million cracks.

But this kind of thinking is exactly how to lose to McCain. It's the Obama people who need to get over it – and quickly. Continuing to bear a grudge will only help McCain. But since June it seems he's failed to take even basic steps to placate the Clintons and their supporters. He's given Hillary some public things he didn't have to do – such as the roll call vote – but missed out the small pleasantries and behind the scenes stuff that could have really made the difference.

At this stage, the rights and the wrongs don't really matter. Did Hillary demean Obama? Did Bill play the race card? It's of only academic relevance right now. Obama won and he needs Clinton supporters on board. Yet he's hardly spoken to Bill Clinton and he's made it clear by omission that he doesn't see a former two-term president as a potential wise counsel.

He let Clinton supporters believe that Hillary might be his veep choice when she wasn't even vetted – and this after he'd said she'd be on anyone's shortlist. He talked about helping retire her debt but doesn't seem to have put himself out trying to do so.

She was outside the Pepsi Centre here a few minutes ago, saying: "He could pick up the phone, he could call me…. Hillary is out there, she is busting her behind for Barack…his people can also write cheques." She continued: "He's just got to call and ask me for my endorsement. It's easy….It's about showing Hillary supporters love."

You could view this as silly emotional stuff, even political extortion. Maybe it is. But how hard is it to pick up the phone to these people? Even if you think they're ridiculous, don't let them know that. As one Hillary aide remarked this week, Bill Clinton's not a complicated person. How about a public statement saying he never played the race card? An Obama visit to the Clinton Library in Little Rock? It wouldn't have been hard.

Trouble is, the perception that Obama has spurned the Clintons plays into the notion that he is arrogant, aloof and disdainful, that he thinks he's got the election sewn up already and doesn't need any help. A little magnanimity would have been just good politics.

The Obama campaign's talking points are all about the rift stories being media-generated blather. But no one really buys that. Check out this astute piece by John Harris of Politico, who covered the Clinton White House and wrote a well-regarded book about Bill. Craig Crawford has a good take here and the veteran Democratic strategist Joe Trippi believes the wounds are still raw here in Denver.

So Obama has a lot of work to do with the Clintons. Problem is, what might have been easy to do in June and July is now a lot harder.

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Having said all that, it's hard not to conclude that Hillary Clinton isn't milking this a bit. I just received this email: